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Do I Need a Separate Breaker for My Shore Power Cord on My Boat?

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Transcript is auto-generated.

hi everyone welcome to

votingtechtalk.com we've got a question

from a fellow board sailing vessel rock

chalk oven

jeff i have a positive disconnect for my

shore power

do i need a separate breaker other than

my main breaker on the distribution

panel

okay this is a hard question to answer

right um first of all

let's put it into context you know let's

start with the question the first part

of the question says jeff i have a

positive disconnect from our shore power

so let's define the words right just to

make sure we're on the same page so here

i'm assuming uh that the vessel owner

when he says positive is talking about

the hot right

and he says i've got a hot disconnect

for my short power right short power be

c120 now what's a little bit unusual uh

generally

um

certainly in north america

disconnects for short power are actually

doable not single right so you don't

have just one breaker you actually have

two breakers that are triggered at one

flick of a switch so it's possible

um you know that the owner here is

talking about a single breaker that

effectively disconnects two things but

in the event that he doesn't um

i would suggest

that

you definitely want to have a double

pull breaker

for your short power discount now the

question is why two shore power breakers

right um

you might need another ac breaker

if your shore power inlet is

10 feet away from

the ac main

disconnect right the double pole breaker

so if your short power inlet is far away

you know at the end of the boat and it's

more than 10 feet of wiring between the

inlet to the ac main panel

then you're gonna need a second

yes that's right a second double pole

uh

breaker rated for your short power

connection 30 amps 30 amps you'll have

230 amps one right after the shore power

inlet within 10 feet of it

and then you'll have one on the panel

now

that's not it

then after that

unless you have you're going to need

some sort of breaker

individual loads right so

most likely and on most of our boats

uh ac circuits are powered either by 14

3 wire 12 3 or 10 3 right 14 3 being 15

amps which would be an ac outlet that we

have common ac outlets that we have in

our homes

15 amp which is 14 3. you might have a

20 uh 12 3 and that's 20 x and that

might power for example a hot water tank

right

water heater

or you might have a 10 3 which is 30

amps which is maybe

going to the inverter for example it

could also be 83 but you're gonna want

to have individual breakers not hot and

neutral anymore you don't have to you

could but you're going to want

individual breakers for every single

circuit ac circuit on your boat so for

example on my boat i have a circuit

breaker for all outlets on the starboard

side of the boat and i have another

outlet for all

port outlets

i have one for the hot water tank

um i have one for the inverter charger

right

now there could be more some of us have

water makers say whatever you know it

doesn't matter whatever you're powering

you need to make sure that the wire size

and the breaker are

exactly matched

and then you need to have a double pole

breaker at the main panel you see panel

and if your

ac

inlet to the boat is further away than

10 feet then you need another one as

well

and that's basically the gist of it so

thanks for asking good question

and thanks for everyone for listening

and i appreciate it if you're curious

we've written whole articles about this

go on our website search it out

and we've got a lot of other tech talks

about this very topic if you haven't

subscribed to this channel please do

it actually it really does make a

difference it encourages to keep posting

so if you're watching this video and

haven't had a chance to subscribe we

really do care because the more of you

that are watching the more of us over

here are willing to spend more time in

creating content so thanks again

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